Building Your Personal Brand

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Jake Isham – Creative Minds

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Actors and Entrepreneurs: Business Challenges
08:00 “Personal Branding Mindset Shift”
12:18 Accidental Path to Creative Agency
21:13 “PR: Perceived Reality Redefined”
24:41 “Authentic Marketing in TikTok Era”
31:24 Know Your Audience First
37:37 “Roofing Content for Local Needs”
40:23 “Finding Your Core Principles”
46:40 Personal Branding Through Authenticity
52:23 Consistency and Learning in Content
57:56 Consistency Builds Niche Recognition
01:01:22 Overcoming Paralysis Through Action
01:05:46 “Creative Minds Digital Show”

Podcast Transcription:

Jake Isham [00:00:00]:
And it’s the same thing, you know, to go back to kind of that conversation that we had at the very beginning about actors is that they know acting. They don’t know how to run a business. A buddy of mine who is a very successful entrepreneur gives this speech all the time when he does seminars, which is, you know, you’re a car mechanic, you’re the top car mechanic at the shop and you see the boss making all the money and you’re like, well, screw him. I wanna open up my own car shop until you realize you have to understand HR, accounting, Promotion, sales, marketing, advertising. Like, that’s what the boss did. Yeah, there’s a couple things to it more than just turning it into all the risk. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:00:39]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found at drawincustomers.com. We are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie, Calls on Call Extraordinary Answering Service, The Bold Business Book, as well as LiveSwitch. And today we’re welcoming/preparing to learn from Jake Eicham of Creative Minds. So Jake, we’re talking marketing today, right?

Jake Isham [00:01:10]:
Yes, sir.

James Kademan [00:01:11]:
I am super excited because I don’t— I’ve been in this marketing kick and I was talking actually with a— I’m going to call it a friend of mine who’s in the marketing world way deeper than me. And it was interesting, the conversation that we had. So I’m excited to talk marketing more with you. It’s just top of mind. So, and all businesses need it. So let’s get started. First up, what is Creative Minds?

Jake Isham [00:01:35]:
We’re a creative agency based in Los Angeles. We’ve done over a billion views online, driving millions in revenue for our clients. And we focus on helping build personal brands and really helping that entrepreneur scale their attention so that they, you know, because at the end of the day, attention drives revenue.

James Kademan [00:01:56]:
Interesting. Now you touched on something there and I want to dig into this a little bit because another conversation I had was the, it’s kind of like chicken and egg thing or nature nurture. It was personal brand versus company brand. Which one do you push? So you as a marketer, if we were to ask you that question.

Jake Isham [00:02:14]:
It depends a little bit on the industry and the entrepreneur who I’m talking to, but you could say what’s gonna beat out in my opinion is personal brand.

James Kademan [00:02:25]:
All right.

Jake Isham [00:02:26]:
Because at the end of the day, most entrepreneurs don’t stick with one business, just majority, you know?

James Kademan [00:02:36]:
Yeah, yeah, you’re not wrong.

Jake Isham [00:02:37]:
They sell or they give up or they, or whatever, you know, life comes around. And personal brand, you know, I think one of the individuals who’s done it the best regardless of politics is Elon Musk. You look at what he’s been able to do as a marketer and as an entrepreneur, purely that, right?

James Kademan [00:02:58]:
Right.

Jake Isham [00:02:58]:
This isn’t a politics show.

James Kademan [00:03:00]:
Right, right.

Jake Isham [00:03:02]:
Yeah, it reminds me of, uh, have such an ultimate personal brand to be able to do that. Another gentleman who came before him was Steve Jobs. He was the face of Apple. And to be honest, if we look at the era of Steve Jobs Apple versus Tim Cook Apple, it’s not as good.

James Kademan [00:03:23]:
Not even close. Yeah.

Jake Isham [00:03:24]:
Not a force to be reckoned with, but because that was a personal brand also, even though it was a company brand. And, you know, and I’m gonna take, I’ll go one step further on this, right? People will, you know, bring up the example of sports and Nike. All right, Phil Knight is not a personal brand. Yes, but what he did was really intelligent. He’s not a top athlete, but he got the best athletes to be the personal brand of the brand Nike, right? He got MJ, he got Kobe, he got LeBron. Like, he got these top individuals to be the personal brand of Nike, right?

James Kademan [00:04:02]:
It makes sense. Makes sense. It reminds me of, uh, somebody was, uh, there’s an article that I was reading, I’m sorry, that was talking about these tribes in way out in Africa, and they had heard of Michael Jackson. Wow. I didn’t know anybody else famous, right, that we would relate to. I mean, we’re talking the ’80s here, but they knew Michael Jackson. Like, it had reached like Coca-Cola and Michael Jackson. It had reached that far.

Jake Isham [00:04:28]:
He, I mean, he is the ultimate persona of you know, the greatest personal brand to ever have done it. He was literally the biggest celebrity on the planet as your example right there.

James Kademan [00:04:41]:
Yeah, surreal. So, let’s dig deeper into that. How do you market yourself as a personal brand knowing, and this is the caution that I have, or I should say the concern that I have, is you market yourself as your personal brand. Now, you always have to be on and you always have to be that voice, or you always have to be pumping out content that you can’t necessarily farm out to anyone else because they’re not you. So you have to give all the presentations and do all the things. So tell me about that.

Jake Isham [00:05:14]:
But that’s— I, I have two things. The first overall is that’s the, that’s the business you’re going getting into. If that, that is the roles and responsibilities of a CEO. That is like, all right, then don’t be a CEO. Don’t be an executive. Like, look, you don’t have to do a personal brand. I’m gonna 100%, I know lots of millionaires and a few billionaires who you could not point out in a crowd, who you could never name by, like, you would never know their name, never know anything about them. And they are unbelievably successful.

Jake Isham [00:05:49]:
Okay. 100%. So I’m not saying, oh, you have to or you will never be successful, but if it’s just a different path and it’s a different— again, it depends on that niche you’re in. If you want to be like hyper B2B, you can slightly stay, but you’re still going to be known within your industry. Like your personal brand doesn’t have to reach the millions of people, right? If you say you service the top 100 law firms in the US, you still have to be the personal brand that is known by those top 100 law firms in the US. Now, Joe in Iowa doesn’t need to know you, but you, Better make sure every partner in all those top 100 law firms know you so you can service them. And that’s where the personal brand is so important. Like, you know, I mean, as simple as this, you think about like, it’s silly, I forgot this example until now.

Jake Isham [00:07:04]:
Some of the biggest brands that we know were all personal brands. Ford. It’s a guy’s last name. Walt Disney. That’s his name. There was a dude named Walt, last name Disney. J.P. Morgan.

Jake Isham [00:07:23]:
These are, these are just people, and they literally built a company based on their name. So That’s where it’s like, again, personal brand is everything. And you don’t have to name the company after your name, but there’s an aspect of knowing who’s running the company, who’s the face of the company, who— where does the buck stop, who’s leading it? And I think that’s where it’s so important. So that’s kind of— I know I got off a little bit of a tangent on your question, but—

James Kademan [00:07:57]:
Oh, you’re good, you’re good. That’s the game.

Jake Isham [00:08:00]:
It’s a mindset shift that a lot of entrepreneurs get scared. Oh, and I’ll throw one caveat there. One more thing is if, because this comes up a lot again in this concern, do I need a personal brand? I want to, all the things that come up with it. And look, just set rules, like focus on what you want to talk about. For example, I have a couple of, you know, friends who are very, very very, very big personal brands. We’re talking millions and millions of followers, do tens of millions of dollars in revenue, and they’ve just set rules and guidelines on what they post and communicate about. You look at Elon, never talked about politics until 2020, right? He, he never talked about politics. And so similar with these guys, like, they go, great, I’m just going to talk about health, I’m just going to talk about fitness, or I’m just going to talk about marketing, I’m just going to, like They just stay in their lane.

James Kademan [00:08:57]:
Got it. Okay.

Jake Isham [00:08:58]:
And so it’s like you don’t have to talk about politics or religion or health or this or that. Like if you do, again, let’s just make this arbitrary. You know, you talk to the top 100 law firms because you have a SaaS that helps them bill more hours or whatever, that you can charge more for billable hours because you have this integrated AI software or whatever. Well, then just talk to them. Don’t go into this. Don’t go into that. Don’t start talking about your workout routine and your morning, you know, health plan, because how is that relevant to that audience?

James Kademan [00:09:36]:
Got it. That makes sense right there. I love that. Stay in your lane. Keep it relevant.

Jake Isham [00:09:41]:
Just talk about your business. Like if you’re wanting to build a broader personal brand to reach more people, Well, fine, but strategically, why are you doing that? You know, you look at, for example, Gary Vee and Grant Cardone, you know, two big names in the entrepreneurial space on digital personal brands. And both of them will occasionally throw out a, you know, hit a long shot, hit something slightly outside of their brand. That’s just to build in a few, get a few more people into their ecosystem, right? But at the end of the day, Grant talks about what he talks about. He talks about real estate. Gary talks about working hard and marketing and social media. Like, but they talk about that. Grant occasionally gets into politics.

Jake Isham [00:10:33]:
Gary goes into, you know, the trash talk and the NFTs and the whatever he does. But that’s just to get a little bit of a wider audience and then goes back to home base. What do they talk about? And it’s just because of what they’re interested in. And so more people who are interested in, again, that kind of Venn diagram, how many, you know, eventually will go back to that middle of who you are and your core concept because at the end of the day, the purpose is to make money. We’re doing this not for fame. If you are, then you’re being an influencer, which is fine. There’s nothing against that. But we’re, at the end of the day, we’re entrepreneurs.

Jake Isham [00:11:14]:
We’re wanting to make more money and grow our business.

James Kademan [00:11:17]:
You could argue influencers, that’s their goal as well, typically, right?

Jake Isham [00:11:20]:
Yeah, but they’re doing it by literally, they make money by getting more views.

James Kademan [00:11:25]:
Right.

Jake Isham [00:11:26]:
And that’s the thing I try to tell entrepreneurs is that if you’re worried about views, you’re doing it wrong.

James Kademan [00:11:33]:
Oh, I love that, ’cause we, I think we have 10, I don’t know.

Jake Isham [00:11:37]:
But if you have the right views, right, that’s all that matters. You know, I tell clients this all the time. If you got 1,000 views and a 1% conversion on that, you have 10 new clients. Most of the clients I work with cannot handle 10 new clients ready to sign and onboard today. They couldn’t handle it. They couldn’t handle 10 calls hitting their sales team. Right now because they don’t have a big enough sales team to handle 10 calls.

James Kademan [00:12:06]:
Right on. We can help them with that.

Jake Isham [00:12:08]:
Exactly.

James Kademan [00:12:10]:
Tell me, Jake, let’s backpedal a little bit to your story. How did you get into marketing?

Jake Isham [00:12:18]:
Completely by accident. I never— this was the last, the furthest thing you would tell, you know, 5-year-old Jake, you’re going to run a creative agency one day. And I’d be like, What? Who? What is that? So I grew up being an actor and being a performer and always kind of wanted to take my destiny in my own hands. And so I was waiting for auditions, waiting for callbacks as an actor and trying to like, didn’t know the business side of acting. And so then I was like, okay, how can I be more causative over my career? So I got behind the camera and started writing and directing, went to film school, uh, fell in love with the craft, absolutely fell in love with the craft of being behind the camera and writing and directing. And then after that, again, after film school, kind of looked and was like, well, what do I do now? You know, they don’t teach you the business side of film school. They just go, great, here’s how you make a movie. Um, at that— around that same time as I’m trying to figure out, my youngest brother, who’s 5 years younger than me, started making $90,000 a year, uh, shooting videos.

Jake Isham [00:13:27]:
And to add insult to injury, he was doing this part-time with his camera on auto. He knew nothing about filmmaking.

James Kademan [00:13:35]:
Oh, so you have all the education, he’s making all the money.

Jake Isham [00:13:38]:
Exactly. I’m the one who’s got the degree on the wall who is now the cliché starving artist. And I was like, what? What is wrong? How is this picture— what is going on here?. And I had to look in the mirror and I realized he’s a business major and I’m just a film major. And he was doing this, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, he was making this type of money. And I was like, what is going on here? So that’s when I basically needed to start learning business. I started learning business a little bit. And as I was kind of doing some promotional actions, you know, trying to get my name out there as a freelancer to try to figure out any work.

Jake Isham [00:14:15]:
Um, some people were like, oh, because I was growing my own social media at that time. I was like, okay, I know. I was, you know, this was 2016, 2015, 2014, 2015, 2016, and those early years of social media. And people were like, oh, you’re like a social media guy. I was like, no, I’m a filmmaker. Well, it’s like, well, we need a social media guy, we will pay you. Like I guess I could be a social media.

James Kademan [00:14:42]:
What do you need me to be, right?

Jake Isham [00:14:46]:
So it’s been years of going back and forth. I don’t want to have an agency. I want to have an agency. I don’t want to have an agency. Well, that makes me money, but I, I’m a filmmaker. So that’s, that’s kind of how I got into it. It was always just— was never, never on the 9-to-5 path. Never had a 9-to-5.

Jake Isham [00:15:03]:
I’ve always done the, uh, Always done my own thing.

James Kademan [00:15:07]:
All right, from, uh, the acting side, when you were in that, did you ever make it to any commercials or movies or shows, even a bit part?

Jake Isham [00:15:16]:
I never made it on the film side. I did theater. I did a lot of theater. I’ve done over 40 plays growing up. Yeah, uh, so did a lot of that but never, never really made it. I, I did the auditions, did the callbacks, But yeah, right on.

James Kademan [00:15:34]:
I don’t want to dig into this too much, but I’m curious. Yeah, I’m curious because I was in Los Angeles, I don’t know, a few years ago and ended up meeting the guy that played Gunther on Friends. And like, I was just at a bar and I started chatting up this couple and I couldn’t tell he was Gunther. And I was like, hey, what do you do? Whatever. And he’s like, oh, you heard of the show Friends? I’m like, yeah, I watched it on the airplane. Obviously. Yeah, and yeah, who hasn’t, right? So anyways, I’m chatting with him and it was interesting because I was asking like, just tell me about the business of becoming an actor and getting the part and going through all the audition stuff. Because the only thing that my limited mind knows is the Poison song Mama’s Fallen Angel, right? So like, you know, kind of the vague what’s going on.

James Kademan [00:16:26]:
But I’m like, do people really just struggle until they get that big part that’s like, yes, I’m the dude in the back carrying the water in the restaurant or something, and then build up from there? Is that really the thing?

Jake Isham [00:16:38]:
You look at— you look at the guy Gunther who played that act, what else has he been in?

James Kademan [00:16:44]:
I have no idea. He was in the process of writing something else. I think 6 months later he passed away, which, um, sorry to hear. But it was interesting because him and his wife we’re in the process of building this whole thing. It was interesting chatting to him about that, or with him about that, I should say.

Jake Isham [00:17:01]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:17:01]:
Um, but completely way unrelated to Friends. I mean, 180 degrees from that. So that was just like, this is my little section. He’s probably making, or was making, his little nut from, um, from Friends. Friends for a million years, whatever. Yeah.

Jake Isham [00:17:19]:
Yeah, I can tell you, you know, the inside of like, just because people are on TV and movies, like, doesn’t mean they’re making— like, like entrepreneurs, you have the handful that are making a lot of money. But just because you see them in their household, they’re getting paid what’s called scale, which is union rates. There’s an agreed-upon rate. It’s like, great, you You get paid $4,000 for, you know, being in these 2 episodes, you know, $2,000 an episode. I don’t know, I made up a number, but sure, whatever.

James Kademan [00:17:56]:
Yeah, not just here’s your yacht.

Jake Isham [00:17:58]:
You do— that’s the only acting gig you have that year is that TV show.

James Kademan [00:18:04]:
Oh wow, okay.

Jake Isham [00:18:05]:
Like, it could be that where it’s like, great, I did an episode of NCIS. Okay, well, maybe you have 3 of those a year.

James Kademan [00:18:15]:
Maybe.

Jake Isham [00:18:15]:
All right. Like, you got to make money somehow. And so that’s why you get the waiters, the this, this, the Uber driver. Like, you get all of the other side gigs because it’s a hustle. And I coach a lot of artists because I’ve been fortunate to, you know, this is how I make my living is through my art. And, but again, it’s not, you could say it’s not directly, like I’m not making films. Like I’m working for clients and I’m working more in an advertising marketing space. And yeah, it’s a, this is, that’s a whole nother podcast episode.

James Kademan [00:18:52]:
Yeah, it’s interesting. You just remind me of a quote from, I think it was Will Smith who said, the worst thing is to be famous and broke.

Jake Isham [00:19:01]:
Yeah. Like, for example, Gary Coleman, right? Oh yeah, from Diff’rent Strokes. So he’s arguably the poster child for that phrase, unfortunately. He got all his money, his parents took all his money. So he literally, he couldn’t do any other work. But he was again, unbelievably famous and unbelievably broke.

James Kademan [00:19:24]:
Oh, yeah. Well, that’s no— well, he’s probably got a podcast now. I don’t know if he— not he should, right? They’re all coming out with podcasts. Let’s shift gears into the marketing side. I was at a LinkedIn marketing event last week, and one of the people that was presenting had a bunch of books, just like we’re all book readers, right? And one of the books that she had that she was giving away was the Trust Me, I’m Lying book. And I don’t know if you ever read that book. I haven’t. It’s a very interesting book, but I guess I’m going to come around full circle to ask you a question here.

James Kademan [00:20:00]:
I believe it’s older. Just, I’ve only been reading it. I’m probably a quarter of the way done with it. I just started last week and it’s talking essentially about blogging and manipulating media is what it comes down to. Okay. And so I assume it’s gotta be, I don’t know, 2010s, way earlier than audio and video were getting popular. Probably even before social media got popular, really popular the way it is now. So anyways, from a marketing aspect, what this guy’s argument is, is that media can be manipulated and can be manipulated pretty easily.

James Kademan [00:20:33]:
And he’s essentially given step-by-step, but in his world at this timeline, it was using blogs. So as I’m reading this, I’m thinking, well, now I don’t know if anyone has anything to do with blogs, but it’s certainly video, podcasts, stuff like that. You look on Reddit or any, just pick your social media of choice. It’s video, video, video, video, video. Shorts have become a thing. So tell me, from your experience, how has the marketing game changed? Let’s say in the past— how long have you been doing this? I should have asked you that.

Jake Isham [00:21:03]:
About a decade.

James Kademan [00:21:04]:
About a decade. Okay, so in the past 10 years, you’ve probably seen a crazy shift in marketing. So tell me about that.

Jake Isham [00:21:13]:
Well, I want to touch on one thing, on one thing right before that, if I may, on the book about about just what that book was talking about, which is kind of an interesting perspective because I touch on it with my clients, something very similar. So a lot of what I help with clients at the end of the day is like brand positioning and brand marketing. It’s top, very top of funnel. And I use this, I kind of for myself discovered this, you know, where it’s like PR, right? PR is just public awareness, right? We know it as public relations, right? How does the public perceive you? And there was a shift I had many years ago, about a decade ago, when I discovered PR in my universe stands for perceived reality.

James Kademan [00:22:02]:
I like that.

Jake Isham [00:22:04]:
All right. How does the public perceive you? And the thing is this, we control that narrative, right? Look at yourself right here. You’re wearing a suit. I’m wearing a quarter zip. I’m wearing a ball cap. You’re not. There’s already a perceived difference. Now imagine if I came on with a suit.

Jake Isham [00:22:23]:
I would have a perceived— somebody would perceive me differently. Just even these small nuanced things, right? It’s how do you want people to perceive you? The reason why I learned that’s very much in terms of you control the narrative on social media, I’ll give you the quick story on it, is I was in Japan shooting for a nonprofit many years ago. And this was again, when you would post in real time. You wouldn’t— that’s how old I am. You would not schedule posts. You wouldn’t batch record. You would literally like, this was the days of Facebook where you would like, great, I’m here, post it now. What are you doing right now type of thing? And so I went to Japan and I only had one day for myself to go shoot.

Jake Isham [00:23:09]:
And I went around the city, I went around Tokyo and got a bunch of really great photographs. I then batch put, I then schedule those out to go out for the next 2 weeks or month because I wanted to make it seem like, oh, I’m traveling around Japan. I had instinctually that idea of building that perceived reality of being an epic world traveler when I was shooting 6 days for a nonprofit that I couldn’t share any, none of that content was mine, but I had one day to make it look like I spent two weeks in Japan. And I remember vividly waking up on a Sunday morning, going on Facebook and seeing a buddy of mine who threw an awesome party. I text him, I’m like, what the heck? Where was my invite? And he’s like, bro, you’re in Japan right now. What do you mean, where’s my invite? I saw your Instagram. You’re in Japan. I was like, dude, I’m on my couch.

Jake Isham [00:24:08]:
I’ve been home for 2 weeks. He’s like, how did I know that you were in Japan? You posted that you’re in Japan. I was like— and it so didn’t fully click with me then, but that was the seed of it. And the same thing literally happened this last 4th of July. I posted photos from when I was in Florida from— and a bunch of my— but like, which was a couple years ago, and a bunch of my buddies were like, oh my God, are you in Florida right now? Let’s, let’s grab coffee. Let’s hang out. Let’s catch up. And I was like, “Ah, dude, I’m in LA.” They’re like, “But you were posting that.” I was like— So it is still so relevant today.

Jake Isham [00:24:41]:
And so, but it comes down to don’t lie. You’re not saying, like, I don’t tell people I’ve made a billion dollars or I’ve, you know, I have a, you know, whatever, like, I’m not lying, but it’s positioning yourself correctly. It’s understanding what are you posting and how is the audience going to perceive that? Right? It’s like you don’t have to say everything, but you don’t have to like say the right things, look appropriate, like make sure you look the way you want to look so that your audience goes, ooh, and gets that perceived reality. So in terms of how marketing has changed, it has never been easier to do that. Oh, I love it. And the biggest change that I’ll say is in the last, is with TikTok. TikTok changed everything from follower-based to interest-based, where we can put out this video, this podcast, right? You can put it up, cut it up into Shorts, put it out on social, and it can— one of our— these videos can get a million views. That has never been— that’s never been able to happen before in history.

Jake Isham [00:25:52]:
Like realize you can put out free content and get millions of views of advertising for free. Sure, it costs the time and it costs your editor to post it, but we’re talking pennies on the dollar. You talk to any marketer who’s been in the game longer than 5 minutes, to get a million views of people who are actually interested in your business would cost thousands, if not tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in actual advertising, and now with organic marketing, you can do it for free, and that’s been the— it’s never been easier to target your audience, but with that goes your competition has never had an easier time to take market share, and so one of the things I preach on all the time, and probably people who follow me are sick of it ad nauseam is you’re not competing with your competitors anymore. We’re not competing. You’re not competing with like this podcast right here. You’re not competing with other entrepreneurial podcasts. You’re competing with Netflix. You’re competing with Coca-Cola.

Jake Isham [00:27:09]:
You’re competing with the biggest brands for attention. Why are they going to spend an hour and watch this show or half an hour and watch this show compared to another show on YouTube, some other influencer, some other show on Netflix, right? And so when you start thinking about it that way, you start going, ooh, I need to increase the quality tremendously. And you need to speak so much to your audience. And that’s where niching down helps so much. And understanding who you’re talking to, how are you talking to them, how are you reaching them, how are you engaging with them. Don’t sell them because even more, that’s even more ways to drive traffic away. So I know I’ve been going on a little rant, so I apologize.

James Kademan [00:27:59]:
No, you’re good.

Jake Isham [00:28:02]:
You’re asking great questions. Get me heated.

James Kademan [00:28:04]:
You filled me with so much knowledge there. And it’s interesting, I can remember taking a video. It was like a 1-day class, like, you’re out of business, let’s market yourself via video. And we’re talking 10, maybe even more years than that ago. And it was like smartphones were just becoming a thing. People had a camera in their pocket. So this is how you produce video and throw it up. Like you said, as soon as you take it, you push it out there, you edit for maybe 30 seconds, right? Chop off the you looking for the stop button and stuff like that and move on with your life.

James Kademan [00:28:37]:
But, uh, it was interesting because as I’m in this class, I realized that, like, wait, everybody’s got a camera in their pocket and the volume of content is just going to exponentially grow. And then as people get bigger and as the population grows and as more people get more sophisticated with their phones and materials and they start using overseas stuff, now AI, like, the volume of content that your competition is And we all only each have 24 hours in a day, so we can only consume so much. It’s very— it’s interesting. It’s almost like, oh man, sooner or later something’s got to give.

Jake Isham [00:29:15]:
Yeah. And let me clarify one thing. I’m talking about— when I talk about quality, I don’t just mean like, oh, you need the fanciest video cameras or the fanciest editing. No, I’m talking about the quality of your ability to communicate on camera. Directly to your audience, provide value in an efficient, effective way that they go, ooh. Because at the end of the day, it’s the old business cliché of people do business with people they know and trust. Social media handles both of those things. Attention, do they know you? That’s the first and foremost thing.

Jake Isham [00:29:47]:
Do they know your face? And that’s where a personal brand, you know, I’m to circle back to where we started, where, you know, They’re connecting with human. This is social media. There’s a reason why it’s called that. At the end of the day, it’s a human on the other side of the phone or on the other side of the device. And then building trust. People are consuming this content for one of three reasons. And this is where it’s like, provide value. Well, what the heck does that mean? Well, people consume content for one of three reasons: entertainment, education, or inspiration.

Jake Isham [00:30:23]:
It’s one of those three. They’re looking either, great, how do I handle this problem? I want to escape my problem, so I’m going to watch entertainment, or I’m going to get inspired either to go work or to escape.

James Kademan [00:30:38]:
Uh-huh, I love it.

Jake Isham [00:30:38]:
And it’s one of those three. And if you can kind of combine them, that’s great, but you also don’t have to. You can also just stay— most entrepreneurs, I recommend just stay within education. But get really good at educating your audience.

James Kademan [00:30:54]:
I love it. All right, so let’s shift gears for the, the people at home that are interested, and they’re like, great, Jake, how do I do that, right? The Joe the Plumbers of the world, or you mentioned attorneys, and in my head I’m like, man, you got to come up with something for an attorney to be not— I guess for them to stick out in some way other than every other attorney out there. So I guess, how do you talk with them to get them to build that brand, to differentiate from other brands?

Jake Isham [00:31:24]:
Well, it’s really understanding, like, first and foremost, who your audience is, right? It was one of the things that we talked about when we first got on this podcast, right? Who’s your audience? And if you can’t name them, you’re gonna have a tough time creating content. You really are, you know. And like, for example, I just was at a mastermind. I was the keynote out in Houston, Texas at a mastermind, and the audience was a lot of, uh, like service, uh, companies from construction, plumbing, etc. And there were two roofing companies, but in two different one in Green Bay and one in Tennessee. They can say the exact same thing, but they will never overlap in terms of competition, right? Like they can make the exact same content over and over and over, but because they service Green Bay and they service Nashville, they will never compete. So like there’s also that analysis for, oh, what, what, like if you’re a service provider, you’re only gonna service the radius you’re gonna service. Now, if you start franchise, like, okay, great.

Jake Isham [00:32:38]:
Like, now we get into bigger problems and, but the percentage of people who have that problem are so small. Oh yeah. So, so small. Okay, I’m a nationwide company. Well, great. Well, still you’re speaking to people with the problem. Like, so at the end of the day, then it’s building trust, right? The content just needs to build trust. What you need to show is that you know how to solve their problem.

Jake Isham [00:33:02]:
So what goes into that? First, you need to know what their problems are, right? For most entrepreneurs that are just starting up, because I work with a lot of those who are like first-time kind of content CEOs, I call them, is this is so overwhelming. Well, great. Let me show you how you can do this with an hour a week. You can have a post going out every single day with an hour a week with no time, with no team. I can show you how to do that. I can also shoot an entire month of content. Like if you wanted to hire my agency, I can shoot an entire month of content for you with under 4 hours of your time once, one day out of the month. Like that’s what I do.

Jake Isham [00:33:45]:
I optimize your time. I go, great, how do we in as fewest hours as possible shoot as much content so you have content going out every single day across every single platform with very little time. That’s a problem I know how to solve. So I speak on that in my content. That’s cool. Yeah, you know, I speak on— okay, great, you know, because I work with a lot of B2B entrepreneurs, I go, podcast, you know, you’re doing podcasting wrong. If you’re using your business, if you’re using a podcast to grow your business, here are the things you need to do and how you do it effectively. So like I speak to the pain points that I know my audience is, so they go, oh, ’cause at the end of the day, us humans, we’re lazy.

Jake Isham [00:34:30]:
We’re not gonna unclog our drains. We’re not going to mow our lawn. We’re not gonna, you know, we want our problems solved for us, but we wanna make sure we don’t get screwed over. We don’t get scammed and we get a good product. So it was like, who do we trust? That’s why referrals are such a big thing, right? That’s why I said, get referrals, get referrals, get referrals, get testimonials, get testimonials, is to show trust. So how do you, what’s the other way to do that outside of referrals and testimonials? Was build content, build a library of content that shows you are the expert in this. Why do we trust the health professionals on social media? Somebody could be saying it with 100 followers versus a million followers. Why do we trust the million followers person? Because they have a million followers.

James Kademan [00:35:23]:
Yeah, it’s social proof whether they’re bots or not. It’s social.

Jake Isham [00:35:25]:
Yeah, it’s social proof, right? So the only way to do it— but they started at zero and they just kept putting it out, and they— each video helps one person. Okay, great. You know, there was a A couple different mentors of mine that, and buddies of mine that we’ve been having this conversation, which is really interesting. It is also just a volume game. To go into that social proof, a buddy of mine was just showing that he just started this new ad campaign, which is fantastic. He’s like, I’ve done over 4,000 posts on my Instagram, and because of that, I’ve made, $4.25 million. Wow. So I was like, all you— and he then shows, he’s like, go look at your Instagram and go look at the number of posts you have.

Jake Isham [00:36:18]:
And it’s, it’s so true. It is, it is such a volume game. And he pushes you do 20 posts a day, so every day, 7 days a week, because then if you do that, you’ll have that in 6 months. Posts you’ll have.

James Kademan [00:36:33]:
So my— you know, it’s interesting you say that, right? Because I’m like, 4,000 posts, that seems like kind of a lot. And then I’m doing the math, wait, like, well, that’s an incredible amount.

Jake Isham [00:36:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. 365 days.

James Kademan [00:36:48]:
Dang. So I guess that’s a perfect segue here. You’re, you have the roofing company, let’s say, and you want to do do roofs in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Yeah. You’re pumping out this content. How do you get people to actually see the content? Are they searching for it and finding it? Well, that’s right. Trying to get in front of their face? Is it paid ads?

Jake Isham [00:37:09]:
So there’s a lot of different strategies to it, obviously. So it’s depending on what part of the funnel you’re looking at. So the biggest thing is you need to understand your customer’s journey. And they go from unawareness. They don’t know they have the problem. They don’t have a problem. They don’t know you, they don’t know anything, to then they become a buying customer. And what are all the small micro steps along that journey? So one strategy is organic, top of funnel, great.

Jake Isham [00:37:37]:
You know, you don’t need a roofer until you need a roofer. Right? Right, it’s not like, oh, you know, a lot of these are, you know, that situation. You don’t need that solution until you need that solution. So you have to be putting out content consistently or you’re having to run ads, right? The great thing is like I’m based in Los Angeles, so I see a lot of Los Angeles content just because I’m based in Los Angeles. I don’t see a lot of Green Bay content, and that’s where it’s like interest-based content is— well, that’s why I said it changed the game in the last couple of years where you can just put out Green Bay roofing content Okay, great. Here’s, you know, snow season’s coming upon us. Here’s 5 things you need to do to prep your roof. How do you know if your roof is gonna leak in the hurricane that’s coming up? Well, here’s some things to do to test it.

Jake Isham [00:38:32]:
Like there’s so many things that you can just, that you as the business owner know instinctually because you, that’s what you do. Nobody knows that data. And it’s also the basic data. Like you don’t have to be like, this is exactly how you repair a roof. Nobody’s gonna know how to do that. But here’s how you test for a leak. Here’s how you prepare for a storm. So it was all these things so that, you know, let’s say you didn’t prepare for a storm, but you saw the video and then you go, ah, shit, I should have done that.

Jake Isham [00:39:02]:
You know who to call though, because they’ve built that trust.

James Kademan [00:39:08]:
So tell me about content, because as an example with the roofer, Yeah, the wintertime or hurricane, whatever. And every year that’s going to be a thing. Do you reuse content?

Jake Isham [00:39:21]:
100%. I tell people you need probably 50 to 100 ideas and that’s it.

James Kademan [00:39:25]:
Oh, wow.

Jake Isham [00:39:26]:
Okay. Because those are your core tenets. To be blunt, if you’ve, if people watch my podcast, if people watch how I’m a guest on podcasts, I say basically the same thing every podcast.

James Kademan [00:39:38]:
I can tell it’s funny you say it just suddenly.

Jake Isham [00:39:40]:
I don’t say anything different. I say the same thing over and over because it’s what’s true. If you want to be successful at content marketing, you have to make more content. You have to educate your audience better. You have to know your audience better. Like, it’s the same rules and tenets. And that’s where if anybody— and if any of your listeners have played sports growing up or are a parent that have, you know, put their kids in sports, what’s the thing that you always teach them? Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. All of our industries have fundamentals, whether it’s roofing, business, marketing, gardening, law, accounting, every team has fundamentals.

Jake Isham [00:40:23]:
Easiest way to find your fundamentals, if you like literally cannot think of them, there are— I’ll tell you a couple of fun ways to figure them out. First, go teach a 10-year-old your trade. Oh. Go teach a kid your trade, whatever your business is. What do they need to know to be successful? Go look at your sales calls. What’s the thing that— what are the questions you’re constantly handling? FAQs, it’s kind of the same thing in terms of those, right? And a silly one, be a guest. Do 100, be a guest on 100 podcasts, you will find yourself saying the same 10 things, same 5 things, same 20 things over and over, and you’ll find different ways of saying them.

James Kademan [00:41:09]:
Oh, perfect. I love it.

Jake Isham [00:41:11]:
And it’s just that, then you make that content over and over and over on your own channels, and you’ll have different nuances like, yes, okay, great. Tell a story about how you helped a client with that. Tell a, you know, tell her this, tell her, okay, great, here are the 3 tactics to do the— like, there’s a million ways to, you know, to shape it, but it’s at the end of the day the same fundamentals over and over and over again, because that’s what then, you know, builds that trust. Because at the end of the day, that’s all we’re going for, is building trust.

James Kademan [00:41:44]:
Right on. I got a few more questions to ask you, Jake, here to help the listeners that are in the entrepreneurial stage here that are like, yes, marketing sounds great, let’s fire in there. Uh, question 1 is social media. Are there certain platforms from a B2B side that you find to be more successful in?

Jake Isham [00:42:03]:
I think all of them. I mean, it’s, it’s silly as this. I have a, a client who, uh, is in the entertainment industry, right? And Yes, he’s B2C, but he’s B2B. Who hires him is other directors, other producers, right? It is businesses. It’s not the broad consumer who’s paying him. And so we’ve been working on his content and he’s been putting it out, putting out across all channels, right? And he goes to a Hollywood shishi networking party, right? Who’s who is there. And one of the biggest directors in Hollywood comes up to him and says, I love your TikTok content. Mind you, his TikTok content is his least followed and least viewed channel.

Jake Isham [00:42:57]:
And we then— I then went, okay, great, let me see if I can find the director’s page, you know, go give him a follow. Why are we— you know, I can’t find the director on, on TikTok. So he’s using a burner account, some account that’s not his name or not, you know, or he’s not putting it out there or whatever. So you never know who’s watching you. You never know who’s looking at your content. They might never like you, might never subscribe to your content, might never comment on it, might not ever be using an account with their own name, but they’re seeing your content.

James Kademan [00:43:30]:
I can attest to that. Because I can tell you, on more than one occasion, I have had people, when I see them in person, reach out to me about a podcast, a guest that I had, and they’re like, hey James, I love this, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. They become a client of mine with other businesses that I have, and I never— I had no idea that they followed, watched, viewed, com— like, they didn’t do it. They just flew under the radar. Yeah, there was a little troll, but in a good way, kind of thing. Yeah.

Jake Isham [00:44:03]:
And so that’s where it’s like you just have to post, and that’s where the posting more— think about it, if every post brings in one client, how many posts would you do? If you knew, or if you knew every 20 posts brought in one client, how fast would you get to 1,000 posts. If you knew every single post, if you knew it took 20 posts to get one client.

James Kademan [00:44:32]:
Right. Yeah, it makes sense.

Jake Isham [00:44:33]:
Get 20 posts out a day. Get a new client every, like, that’s the simplicity. And look, the numbers vary, the numbers are different for every single person, but it is that way. And the better your content gets, the faster you get clients per content.

James Kademan [00:44:49]:
Fair. I love it. Let me ask you another question about social media. With a lot of platforms, you have a business side and you have a personal side, but we’re talking about personal brand. Are you doing your personal brand on the business page, or are you trying to essentially mix the personal brand with the personal stuff?

Jake Isham [00:45:08]:
I’m going to clarify exactly what you’re meaning in terms of the business side.

James Kademan [00:45:11]:
Let’s just talk about Facebook specifically because that’s the one that I’m thinking of where they have the your own Facebook page, your personal stuff. Here’s what I ate for breakfast.

Jake Isham [00:45:19]:
This is my grandma. Facebook is the only one that like really separates it. All of the other platforms, TikTok, Instagram, their business page just allows you to have analytics.

James Kademan [00:45:33]:
Oh, okay.

Jake Isham [00:45:33]:
That’s the only difference. Like if you go from an Instagram account to an Instagram business account, it gives you analytics. TikTok is the same way. And LinkedIn, same thing, right? And so Facebook’s the only one where it’s like, great, here’s like a personal profile and your business profile that I’ve noticed.

James Kademan [00:45:52]:
And I guess LinkedIn has your company pages.

Jake Isham [00:45:55]:
Sure, it has a company page and then your personal page. So I, I’m a big believer— so LinkedIn, your personal. Facebook, do both. You might as well just post it to your personal and your business page., but you’re capped at, so for example, Facebook, this is, you know, we’re getting into the weeds on this. Facebook, you’re capped at 5,000 friends, so you can only grow 5,000 friends, which at the end of the day, we want a lot more than that as a business. We want tens of thousands and, you know, millions ideally, whatever, whatever the, you know, your total addressable market is, we want it all, so we don’t want caps. Instagram, TikTok, you know, don’t have caps. You just go hard in there.

Jake Isham [00:46:40]:
In terms of showing your personal brand is I would sprinkle in things that make sense to who you are. I’ll give a great example. I mean, you look at any entrepreneur who’s big on the space, does it well, from Gary Vee with his love for the Jets and, is different things to Grant Cardone being a dad and pushing his girls up to Alex Hormozi. Like for example, I love Alex, how Alex has sprinkled in little things where he used to be really big on, if your listeners know Alex Hormozi, they know what he looks like. For those who don’t know Alex Hormozi, the dude is jacked. He came from the gym space, really buff, really strong, like looks like could be a bodybuilder. And he used to do this thing on Instagram every night where he’d show— he would do Never Skip Dessert, and he would show you could look like him and be able to eat dessert every night. Oh, funny.

Jake Isham [00:47:41]:
And that was a— but, and he— it became a culture thing within his followers. They never skip dessert, never, like— but it’s because he put the work in, and he talks about I don’t have to skip dessert because I put the work in for years. And that’s part of his core values as an entrepreneur and what he constantly talks about, put the work in, whether it’s marketing, sales, et cetera. Additionally, now he’s doing this thing where he shows up at the office at like 5:00 AM, 4:00 AM, and one of his employees, and he sees if he’s there at that same time, if his employee is beating him there. And, but again, it’s part of the culture. Show up early, work hard. And it’s what he talks about in his content. So things that make sense, like I’ll occasionally post about being at the gym, not because I’m a gym guy, but because I constantly compare social media to the gym.

Jake Isham [00:48:38]:
It’s one of, to me, it’s one of the most obvious comparisons there is. The only way you get results at the gym is by showing up and putting in the hard work. The only way you get results on social media is you gotta post. It’s a one for one. It’s both suck, both take the time it takes, but you do it long enough, you get the great results. Additionally, in the gym where like you could do any workout, it doesn’t matter what workout you do, you just gotta do a workout, whether it could be Zumba, Pilates, weightlifting, cardio, like you’ll get the body you want. Same thing with social. You can do any strategy.

Jake Isham [00:49:16]:
You could do podcasts, you could do Shorts, you could do long-form vertical, you could do blogging, you can do like, you’ll get results. But either way, how you get results is you do it long enough. So it makes sense for what I talk about. So look at your values and look at what you talk about in terms of your business and go, okay, great, is there something in my personal life that makes sense to that? Like, I don’t post about my wife, I don’t post about my family because I don’t care to. It’s not on— it’s not on brand. It has nothing to do with anything in terms of my business, right?

James Kademan [00:49:58]:
Not relevant to your—

Jake Isham [00:49:59]:
the audience. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, if— I don’t know, I think I’ve made my point.

James Kademan [00:50:06]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you had a mom blog, it’d be a different story, but you don’t.

Jake Isham [00:50:09]:
So yeah, you know, exactly. If you were building a personal brand and, and you’re— but your business is mom products, right? Show you being a mom or show you being a dad or whatever, or show you, you know, at the park or this or that, like whatever, because that makes sense, right?

James Kademan [00:50:30]:
Yeah, I completely understand what you’re saying there. Um, Jake, it’s funny you’re talking about the gym and social media, and I was just joking with a buddy of mine. I’m like, last time, like, I like to lift at home. I went to a gym when I was traveling, and I swear to God, 90% of the people there were on a machine and on their phone. I’m like, I don’t think that’s how those machines are supposed to work. I think you actually have to throw some weight on there and move your legs or arms or something, not just your thumbs. Yeah. Bizarre world we’re in.

James Kademan [00:51:06]:
Um, I do want to ask, just because a lot of times people can learn from what not to do, oftentimes more than what to do, what are some mistakes that you see people make from the marketing world that you see routinely, commonly now?

Jake Isham [00:51:20]:
I mean, the biggest thing is not starting. Ah, okay. The two biggest things are not starting and not being consistent. So the one thing is the social media platforms. I’m a big believer in like, oh, the algorithm doesn’t like me, da da da, like false. I’m shadowbanned, false, false, false, false, false, false. The audience, replace algorithm with audience, and the audience is like, you’re not making good enough content. You need to get better at making content.

Jake Isham [00:51:52]:
Now, I’ll put an asterisk on that. The only time that I say the algorithm is against you, the actual social media platforms, what they want is consistency. And for you to be consistently putting out, if you’re doing 3 times a week, stick with 3 times a week. Don’t, it’s again, like the gym. Don’t go hard for a week and then stop for a month. The same thing with social media. Don’t go hard for a week and then stop for a month. It’s the exact same thing.

Jake Isham [00:52:23]:
It’s better to do 3 times a week for a year than, okay, great, do 20 posts this week and then 2 and then take a week off and then go, okay, great, here’s 30 and then here’s 10 and then here’s 12 and then like, it’s, so the inconsistency. So those are the 2 biggest things. Obviously then from there, getting your hooks in and speaking to your audience is kind of, you could say the error, like just understanding it’s a skill. And just like your craft was a skill that you had to learn, just like sales is a skill you have to learn, creating content is a skill you have to learn. And you can learn it through a couple ways. You can learn it, you know, trial by fire, just by doing more. You can learn it by watching more YouTube videos and getting mentors. You can learn it by hiring an agency to help you with it.

Jake Isham [00:53:24]:
So you got to learn the skill. It’s a skill. You just got to do it. There are cheats, you know, mentors and agencies and consultants. Otherwise, you just got to do the reps.

James Kademan [00:53:37]:
Right on. Just got to do the reps. Tell me, so Jake, is that essentially what people pay you for?

Jake Isham [00:53:44]:
Yes, that is full circle, right? Yeah, essentially. You know, I have a creative agency, uh, we’re based in Los Angeles but we service clients all over the country. And, um, you know, if they don’t know what to say, how to say, and can’t hold themselves accountable, we help them do it all the way from ideation, strategy, shooting, editing, post-production. Additionally, uh, we have kind of two main strategies that we push. One is, uh, more personal brand building, which is, you know, building out your own personal social content, doing that, putting it out consistently. Outside of that, um, we help build digital shows and podcasts for clients. And I find, uh, you know, podcasting is the new networking. For example, that, uh, that keynote that I just spoke at in Houston.

Jake Isham [00:54:34]:
Uh, I, I met the gentleman via a podcast. I was on his podcast, and, uh, from there I then, uh, built a relationship with him, spoke to his coaching clients, and a coaching call. Then he invited me to, to be the keynote speaker at his mastermind.

James Kademan [00:54:53]:
What else I have for you? Oh, from the businesses that you worked with over the past 10 years, what are some of the craziest business or types of businesses that you’ve worked with? You got your typical HVAC people, plumbers.

Jake Isham [00:55:06]:
Yeah, big names I’ve worked with are, you know, I’ve worked with Grant Cardone. I’ve shot content for him. Uh, for, for any entrepreneurs that are big golfers out here, I’ve worked with Callaway, I’ve worked with Travis Mathew, I’ve worked with LA Golf, uh, I’ve worked with Campari. Uh, from a celebrity standpoint, I’ve worked with Chloe Fineman, who’s on SNL. I’ve worked with Marty Kove, Martin Kove, who’s in Cobra Kai. He’s in Karate Kid. He’s the kind of the evil sensei.

James Kademan [00:55:41]:
How did you connect with all these people? Some of those are pretty big names.

Jake Isham [00:55:46]:
Yeah, so a lot of different ways.

James Kademan [00:55:52]:
Referrals.

Jake Isham [00:55:53]:
Friends of friends. I landed Travis Mathew through a cold DM. I mean, well, it took multiple cold DMs, but that came about just, I was shooting a lot of corporate clients and was kind of sick of it and was like, okay, I wanna shoot more things that if I’m gonna be on set, you know, things that I would find interesting. And I was getting into golf at that point in my life. I just started getting into it. So I was like, let me shoot some golf content. Over a period of a couple months, DM Travis Mathew, and they then were like, yeah, hey, we actually need somebody for a shoot. Are you free? I was like, yes, I am.

James Kademan [00:56:33]:
I am now.

Jake Isham [00:56:34]:
Clear your calendar. Yeah, 100%. And then that got me Callaway. Somebody from there moved from their team, moved to Callaway, which brought me on to shooting Callaway. And because I was shooting Travis Mathew, that got me LA Golf again through word of mouth. It’s like you just kind of keep— you just kind of be in that niche. You be in the space enough. You just— the niches are much smaller than we think.

Jake Isham [00:57:04]:
Oh yeah. Like whatever niche you’re in, like it’s— when you’re out of it, you’re like, oh my God, it’s scary. I don’t— once you start getting into it, Like it’s a consistent space. Like for example, I have a client who is a painter and she goes every year, the last 7 years she’s been going to Art Basel, which is in Miami. It’s one of the biggest art shows in the world. And 2 years ago, what is it? Yeah, 2 years ago, a couple came by and liked her work and you know, we’re like, oh yeah, great. Last year, just this last year, they came by and they’re like, okay, so we came to your booth last year, but we had spent all our art spending money this, that year. And so we couldn’t buy any more, but we love your art and we wanted, and we’re so glad you’re here again.

Jake Isham [00:57:56]:
And they bought one of her most expensive pieces. Art, no, they bought her most expensive piece, but because they, they knew to find her first. And so it’s like, if you just, stay in the niche long enough, people will know you. And that’s where like, you know, working with service professionals, you don’t— how often do you need your roof replaced? I hope not often. Hopefully not often, right? And so you just have to be putting content out there because that person who wants to do business with you aren’t ready to do business with you for maybe 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years, 10 years. You need your roof replaced every 10 years, 12 years, 25 years, whatever it is. Like, if you just stay in the game long enough and put out content consistently enough, you will be known in your niche. And yeah, just— it just comes down to that.

James Kademan [00:58:53]:
It’s so interesting hearing you say that because I find this a lot in business, that consistency and persistence is the name of the game. But then as a counter to that, we hear this, uh, the definition of idiocy or something like that is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And I’m like, I don’t know, man, that seems like a terrible quote because the idea is that you have to be consistent and persistent to get stuff done. It’s not a light switch.

Jake Isham [00:59:19]:
And it’s expecting different results, right? So it’s like You know, if it’s doing something that’s the same, like, it’s like, if you’re growing your business, you have to just keep growing your business. You just have to be consistent. But if you’re doing the same thing, like, and it’s like, if you’re changing paths or like, oh great, let me try it, let me try it. Like, that’s where you’re gonna get really screwed up. You know, I can tell you because I’ve done it. I’ve been the guy to, to jump ship a couple times in my business. All right, burned everything down, and it— the, the price to regrow it, you’re paying twice as much. It’s— you’re going back to this, the beginning of the start, starting line.

James Kademan [01:00:06]:
What was the trigger for those times, or one of those times, to just burn it down and start over?

Jake Isham [01:00:12]:
It’s me wanting to just be that bougie artist who just wants to— I just want to make art. I don’t wanna be a business guy. I wanna be an artist. I’m just a filmmaker, right? It’s still that, you know, post-college, I just wanna be a filmmaker. I don’t wanna be a business owner. And realizing this is the biggest thing that I constantly tell me is freedom comes from discipline. The actual, it is inherently the opposite. The more you actually just sit and focus, the more freedom you have, because then you’re not jumping around from thing to thing.

Jake Isham [01:00:47]:
You’re actually just getting things done. And social media— and to kind of circle back to, to use it for this exact topic we’re talking about— like, social media doesn’t take that long. It takes long because people don’t confront it. So they’re like, oh, this is— it’s 4 hours a day. No, you could do it in less than an hour a day. You could do it in 30 minutes a day if you actually were able to confront it. You could do it an hour to 2 hours a week, have content going out on every single platform, be growing your business for 2 hours a week. But people aren’t.

Jake Isham [01:01:22]:
But people don’t confront it, and they don’t sit there just relaxed and go, great, what’s the next thing I have to do? What’s the next thing I have to do? What’s the next thing I have to do? They go, okay, well, let me get— I was stuck scrolling myself, and then like if you just sat there and did it, you realize how fast it takes. And that’s why most of the time people call me and hire me is because they don’t have that discipline, they don’t have the accountability, and they get lost and they get stuck in that analysis paralysis. So, which is fine, I’m more than happy to help you through it, but we all have 4K cameras right here. Like, sure, I bring a fancier camera and I bring a fancier light and I have microphones, but You can get a $100 light from Amazon. You can get a $100 microphone. For $200 and a phone, you could do the same thing.

James Kademan [01:02:14]:
It’s interesting that you mentioned that on a couple levels here. One, I just want to touch on, uh, my coach has been talking to me about focus the past couple weeks. So I love that you talked about that because that is a huge thing that I see with myself, definitely, and other entrepreneurs as well. Like, we’re just all chasing squirrels.

Jake Isham [01:02:33]:
It’s a challenge for me. Shiny object syndrome. It’s just, oh, I need to do this. I need to do that. Oh, I guess social media isn’t working.

James Kademan [01:02:43]:
Like, I can tell you that I hired a marketing guy a few weeks ago. Specifically, I remember chatting with him over coffee and I’m like, here’s the situation, dude. I could probably do this on my own. Not saying that I have the same skills.

Jake Isham [01:02:56]:
Right.

James Kademan [01:02:56]:
But I mean, I could, but I haven’t. We’re pushing 20 years in business, right? And I, I would have all these false starts. So if I have to pay you to be my babysitter and I have that monthly nut that I’m paying you and I’m like, oh, what is that for? And it lights the fire under my butt to actually make sure it’s done. Yeah. Happy to. Happy to. You can just— whatever, we’ll figure it out. But, um, that’s part of the pain of not being able to necessarily focus so easy.

James Kademan [01:03:28]:
It’s going to cost you some cash.

Jake Isham [01:03:31]:
100%. Half the time— and again, to go with that gym analogy, I’m a personal trainer. I, you know, I just bring a gym to your house, which is my cameras, my lights, you know, or to your office. We sit for 2 hours and get your workout in.

James Kademan [01:03:46]:
Nice. Oh, perfect analogy. I love it. Jake, where can people find you?

Jake Isham [01:03:53]:
Uh, LinkedIn is great, you know, all business related, obviously. Uh, Jake Creative Marketing on Instagram. Otherwise, if you just Google my name, you’ll probably see my photography or my filmmaking or my agency. You can kind of find anything.

James Kademan [01:04:10]:
Nice. All right, is there a website you want to steer people to, or just LinkedIn?

Jake Isham [01:04:13]:
Sure. Uh, if you’re interested in working with us, uh, go to https://Creativemindsofficial.com/digitalshow. You know, we’ll help build out a free outline for your show and, and a free pot, like what it would look like to do a show for you totally for free. Um, again, I’m somebody who I just like to provide value. I like to help people. If you think we’re a good fit, great, but I also just like whatever’s going to help you and your business grow.

James Kademan [01:04:42]:
Nice. I love it. Jake, thank you so much for being on the show.

Jake Isham [01:04:45]:
You’re very welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

James Kademan [01:04:48]:
This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. My name is James Kademann, and Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, offering call answering and reception services for service businesses across the country, on the web at https://callsoncall.com. And of course, The Bold Business Book, a book for the entrepreneur in all of us, available wherever fine books are sold. Uh, let’s see here. If you’re listening or watching this on the web, if you could do us a huge favor, give us a big old thumbs up, subscribe, share with your entrepreneurial friends and those friends that have their own business that need to figure out where to start with marketing their business. Personal branding sounds like it is the way. Uh, we’d like to thank our wonderful listeners as well as our guest Jake Icham of Creative Minds.

Jake Isham [01:05:37]:
Jake, can you tell us that website one more time?

James Kademan [01:05:46]:
CreativeMindsOfficial.com/DigitalShow. Awesome. Easy enough. Jake, that’s all we got here. I appreciate you being on the show.

Jake Isham [01:05:52]:
Thank you for having me.